Saturday, November 29, 2008

Welcome to another edition of "Are You Kidding Me?!" Today we've got tragedy and comedy for the offering:

I come by my distaste for Black Friday honestly...15 plus years in the retail trenches in a prior career, but these stories just take it up a thousand notches: A temporary worker for Walmart was trampled to deathby people who literally broke down the doors to get the "doorbuster deals." To add to the appalling nature of the incident, when people were told that the store was closing because someone had been killed in the melee, they reacted with outrage because they would miss out on the deals they had waited in line to get. The people who trampled the worker, didn't even stop to attend to or help the man; they kept shopping. And, two men pulled out guns and proceeded to have a fatal gun battle (they both perished) over a dispute in the electronic aisle of a southern CA Toys R' Us, right in front of frightened and traumatized little kids picking out their Christmas toys. Suffice it to say that these incidents are just so wrong on so many levels it literally takes the breathe away. Be safe out there, and keep in mind what the whole point of this holiday season is, and uncaringly trampling/shooting people to death just to get to more cheap stuff is most definitely not it!

You've heard of designated drivers, but have you heard of "designated flip-flops?" Apparently, women getting soused and subsequently toppling from their high heels on the wobbly way home was enough of problem in Torbay, Devon, U.K., that the police have taken to passing out flip flops to women making their way home from revelry. Sure they guard from hangnails, but how about hangovers?

Sooner rather than later Sweden will begin using "spray-on skin" for wound care. We're talking actual skin cells.

Would you name your kid after a dictator if someone paid you to? Reuters reports, "An Italian right-wing party is offering 1,500 euros ($1,930) to parents who name their babies after wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini or his wife Rachele, saying their names are under threat."

Evidence that times are tough were glaringly apparent, when a farm in Denver, Co, invited the public to come and pick any left over produce after their recent harvest, and 40,000 people showed up, and picked the fields clean of 600,000 tons of "left-overs."

Beware thieves armed with lubricants! A women in Florida was accosted, and thieves with a lubricant substance on their hands slathered her hand to be able to yank off her rings more easily.

Check those tires! And no this isn't a cost cutting tip, but one that might potentially save your life. Even if your tires are "new," if they were manufactured more than six years prior they could be compromised by age breakdown. Watch this important video report from ABC, check your tires, and be aware when you get your tires changed in the future.

Let's conclude with a story that inspired me to say "are you kidding me," but in a good way. A family owned Midwestern company, recently sold to a Swedish corporation, surprised their employees by sharing some of the proceeds of the sale with them in a bonus, in amounts according to their years of service. Some people received over $30,000! What an exceptional company!!

About Me

The character trait I am most proud of is my insatiable curiousity. Parenthood has added dimension and focus to my natural need to know. I am a mother to a precocious young toddler and an infant, who inspire, challenge and enrich my life moment by moment.
I am a freelance writer and ghostwriter, and if you are interested in working with me, I can be contacted at Kirsten.E.Branch@gmail.com.

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Welcome to Relevant Mom

It feels appropriate that I launch Relevant Mom at 6:00 am on Mother's Day, after resettling my husband and son back into their peaceful slumbers, and finding myself wide awake with words and ideas swirling in my head. I had been waiting for that spark that would help me introduce why I felt I needed to share my personal journey and interests with others in this medium; so thanks God, but I really could have used some more precious sleep!

A constant in my life, and frankly probably my best personality trait, is my curiousity, my need to know. Previous to becoming a mother, I was a collector of information, all of it seemingly random. I clipped articles, and I amassed an eclectic library of books that I simply found interesting in the moment. I reveled in the sheer variety of my curious impulse.

Motherhood was a catalyst for me. What I needed to know and why it was important all took on greater focus and clarity. My place in the world, and my concern for the rest of it became very immediate and raw. My intellectual curiousity did not dim upon giving birth, rather it was energized and inspired by an entirely new slate of questions. Oh, I still enjoy the odd bit of celebrity gossip, but I have found a decreasing level of interest in such things overall. I sought a parenting source that was relevant to me, and what I found didn't quite fit the bill, so I decided to create it for myself and others of similar interests. Also, becoming a mother, my time became very very short! Others of my acquaintance, whom I shared bits and peices I thought would be useful to them, wondered where I had found the time to find this information, and told me how much they valued their "dashboard" motherhood news flash, and thus an idea was born.

My vision for Relevant Mom at this time is to provide news, resources and commentary that is relevant and useful to a mom. But to be clear, these are things that interest ME, and perhaps you as well. I am not an impartial news service, and really, does that actually exist anyway? Like me, some days it might be serious and cerebral, and others just plain silly and flippant. I hope you enjoy the gamut and all the spaces in between. Visit when you want and can. I hope the information you find is useful, and that you might find something of which you were not aware. In the coming weeks and months, I will add lots of resources that I have come across in my personal research. Be forewarned, I welcome conversation, but not disrespectful diatribes.

Now, the house is stirring, and the cat wants her share of the mommy attention for the day, so it is on to the business of motherhood.